


My Ferry Romance

by lovebashed



Category: Bandom, My Chemical Romance
Genre: Angst, M/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-12-23
Updated: 2008-12-23
Packaged: 2017-10-28 08:26:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 19,912
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/305871
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lovebashed/pseuds/lovebashed
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Socially awkward Gerard meets Frank the Friendly Cafeteria Worker on a ferry one morning. Shenanigans ensue.</p>
            </blockquote>





	My Ferry Romance

**Author's Note:**

> Written in 2008. Many thanks to [turnyourankle](http://turnyourankle.livejournal.com) for the beta.

It was the kind of morning you wanted to sleep through: cold and early and dark. Thick pea-soup fog was always present in mornings like this, and sea air made fingers prickle from cold.

The clock was ticking somewhere between seven-thirty and the real hour Gerard could have woken up if he'd caved and moved to NYC while his mother was still offering to help with the costs. But Gerard loved New Jersey in a way you might love a ratty-furred, parasite-infested stray dog with a tendency to bite you in the shin with its blunt mauling teeth. Once you took it under your wing, gave it food and shelter, allowed it to sleep in your bed after losing a battle or two and cleaned up its shit, you couldn't really bring yourself to part with it anymore, couldn't turn your back on it even with all the trouble it brought you.

And it was love, unadulterated and strong, and it covered every little detail from the foggy space above sewer covers at night to the bridge he and Mikey weren't supposed to play on at ages of seven and ten, and eight and eleven, but did anyway.

Gerard was standing in line for coffee on his favorite ferry that took him to Manhattan every morning, silently musing to himself while trying to avoid eye contact with the other queuers. The ferry he chose this morning was the same one he had chosen every morning for almost two years now. It was relatively small, and had an air of coziness the other ones lacked. It looked like it had seen its best days sometime in the sixties, but it still somehow continued luring passengers in like it was brand new.

Gerard found it easy to get lost in his thoughts on mornings like this, in the loud hum of the people and the engines and the licking waves against the ferry frames. He didn't particularly mind waiting for the line to move, but it was almost eight already, and creeping into his mind there was a worry that he might not have his coffee by the time the ferry reached the platform.

Hitching his two folders further up his arm, he peeked over a big guy in his mid-thirties that Gerard had nicknamed Stupid Fucking Jackass earlier for cutting in line. The guy brought images of gym membership cards and The Hulk into Gerard's mind, things that he was not particularly fond of. There was a bushy head of hair two people ahead of Gerard blocking his vision. The hair could have belonged to Ray, if Ray had suddenly morphed into a skinny black female.

Eventually, the hair bobbed to one side, and over a row of shoulders Gerard saw something -- _someone_ \-- that he was not expecting to see. Good old Edie, with her cinnamon-bun hair and flowery shawls, wasn't behind the counter. Instead, there was a young twentysomething guy with an easy smile and large eyes, hair dyed in a way that made Gerard think of fucked up skunk stripes.

Gerard stared at him bemused, and gnawed on his lip without really even realizing he was doing it.

He was certain he had never seen this guy before, and he was almost positive that he was on the right ferry, too. He looked around, and yes, there was that one table in the corner, its wooden surface blotched with black ink where Gerard's pencils had ganged up on him some months ago. Definitely the right ferry.

 

Gerard wondered where Edie was. She had always been nice to Gerard, and she knew just how he liked his coffee. This guy though, he didn't even seem to get the line to move faster than a snail's speed, even if he was flailing around like a confused bird. He was relatively short and thin, but he was all over the place, his grin all huge and pretty as if the ferry was the only place he'd ever wanna be in.

Gerard toyed with his scarf ends, and couldn't stop fixing his hair behind his ears and touching his sleeves. He was sweating under layers of clothes, t-shirt and hoodie crammed inside his worn leather jacket. Under his scarves his neck felt red, hot and burning.

When his turn finally came, Gerard was finding it hard to stop staring at the new guy, and he smiled weakly at him, fumbling with his mug.

"Hi, I'm Frank, your friendly cafeteria worker," the guy said with a cheesy grin. He had a Hello My Name Is sticker tacked on his forehead, and a slapdash 'F'N'STEIN' written on it in black ink. "Sorry it took so long, I don't really know what the hell I'm doing." He laughed and it was like glass breaking.

"Uh?" said Gerard, nervously fiddling with his mug. The mug was black and huge, and he had carefully chosen it from the cart earlier before taking the rear end of the line, worried that he wouldn’t get the biggest one otherwise.

"Right, right, coffee, right? I mean, we've got tea, too, but you look like a coffee kind of guy," Frank babbled. His apron was black and there was a white skeleton print of a ribcage, hipbones and a nicely shaped spine on it, spanning the apron from top to bottom. It was really fucking cute on him.

Gerard opened his mouth to answer, but Frank made an 'oh shit' face and said, "Oh, fuck me, I didn't mean - shit, sorry. It's just, I love coffee, right? Couldn't get up in the morning without some, but tea's totally badass, too." He made a move to grab the teapot but Gerard quickly pulled his mug to his chest to protect it from the possibility of getting it filled with tea.

"But I like coffee," he blurted out.

Frank laughed at him.

Then someone yelled, _what the fuck, man?_ Frank put his weight on his hands as he leaned over the counter, just brushing past Gerard, and eyeballed the whole queue. "Patience is, what do you call it?" he looked straight at Gerard.

Gerard wasn't sure if he was supposed to answer. He fumbled with his mug and smiled nervously at the angry customers behind him.

Then this big dude with pale hair and eyes walked in from the kitchen. He slowly blinked at Frank, made some sort of grunt while palming his face, and reached down to swat at Frank's ass hard enough to make a loud slapping sound. "Stop harassing the customers, Frank, and get back to work," he said.

"Wasn't harassing," Frank grumbled. There was a glass jar filled with sugar cubes under Frank's belly that he nearly knocked over while sliding down the counter. It shuddered some, but Frank quickly took a hold of it.

Asking with a sweet smile if Gerard liked some sugar in his coffee, Frank made him hold the mug out for him, and proceeded to measure out the right amount.

When Gerard finally got his coffee, the ferry was almost at the platform, and he walked away in a daze, Frank's loud obnoxious laugh in his ears.

 

\--

 

From Manhattan Gerard took the commuter rail to work. It had always felt like a pretty shitty deal, the whole journey, and how it ate up his mornings; how he had to clamber out of bed at the crack of dawn just so he wouldn't be late for work, but he couldn't just go and abandon his pup.

So what if it was already late in the evenings when he got back home? It wasn't like he had important things to attend to; he hadn't even gone out with anyone besides Mikey and Ray in almost a year. Not since sobering up.

The train was crowded that morning. Gerard gave his seat to an old lady, and slouched by the window for the rest of his journey, trying to avoid bumping into people, which proved out to be harder than he thought.

The thing was though that Gerard had begun to feel somewhat dispassionate about his job.

When he was hired two years ago, he had been beside himself with joy, overwhelmed with all the possibilities the job could bring him. But when reality had finally kicked in, Gerard had realized that it was just long hours and endless stacks of projects with no end in sight. He had less time to work on his own comic ideas now than he had had before he started.

His days mostly consisted of staying in his cubicle until it was dark outside, whiling away the hours by coloring other people's works, and trying to do as well as he could because the competition was always tough.

As it were, Gerard was bored at work again.

He was tapping his pencil against the drafting table, thinking about Frank. Right now he was supposed to be coloring some Dark Tower strips for Marvel Comics, and it had Mikey and Dad excited as hell, but something was still missing. Gerard didn't feel the passion for his job anymore. The whole thing was starting to leave a bad taste in his mouth. If only he could get his own ideas out there, maybe then things would look up again.

There was always that thought of not being enough, that he was deemed to always just lurk behind the scenes, never making it out to the front of the stage. It nagged at his brain and brought him down, made him crave for things he knew he had to stay away from.

Last year, he had woken up in a puddle of his own vomit after passing out outside the corner bar. Last year he had felt like throwing himself over the balcony railing of his apartment building. Last year he'd made Mikey sick with worry, and knew he had to stop.

He couldn't go down that road again, he knew he had to just hang in there, suck it up and be grateful for what he had. There were people who needed him to be alright.

One of them called quarter to seven and told him to go home.

Gerard had been working overtime again. The thought of drowning in piles of unfinished projects was something that scared him more than he was willing to admit.

"In a minute, Mikey," he said into his work phone while stuffing random sketches into folders, pushing wilted, stringy hair out of his eyes. "Don't worry about me, little brother."

“You make it really hard not to worry, sometimes,” Mikey's voice sounded with a hint of static, and Gerard halted a bit, smiling gently in the dark cubicle.

The building was almost empty already, the only light source coming from the small lamp clipped to the top of his drafting table. He liked it best this way. If he ignored the obnoxious cries of the traffic outside, and the crumble-rumble of the too enthusiastic ventilation system inside the building, it almost felt like being back in his mother's basement, sketching monsters for Mikey and Ray.

" _Bye_ , Mikey. Going now," Gerard said pointedly as he threw his jacket on. It smelled like his cigarettes, and made Gerard fumble for a pack of Marlboro Lights from the hidden pocket inside the jacket. He was suddenly craving for a smoke more than anything in the world. Sometimes he got so distracted with the shape of a nose or the arch of an arm that he didn't even notice his cravings, but the oblivion was only momentary.

 _Gotta choose your poisons_ , Mikey had started saying, when he finally felt like it was something he could joke about around Gerard, waving his coffee mugs, and yeah, Gerard certainly had.

Mikey hung up without another word, but Gerard knew he was making faces at his sidekick, or rolling his eyes in his room.

 

\--

 

Frank was still at work when Gerard got back on the ferry.

It was very quiet already, no customers around to bother Frank, which was probably a good thing considering the zombie-like state he seemed to have fallen in. His easy smile was replaced with hooded eyes and slumped shoulders, and he wasn't bouncing around anymore. He was actually just sitting on a stool behind the counter, toying with a metallic lighter, flickering fire on and off. The Hello My Name Is sticker was gone, and his bangs were sticking to his forehead awkwardly.

Gerard hesitated. He wasn’t really hungry, but he kinda wanted to have a conversation with Frank. The thing that was holding him back was his inability to have conversations with people he didn’t know. He wouldn't even know where to start with Frank. Mikey was the one you sought at parties and everywhere else, Gerard was the awkward dude in the corner you were going to ignore.

He shuffled his feet on the planks for a while, pep talking himself until he felt like he was ready to move.

Behind his counter Frank was biting his lip, completely focused on the tiny flame on top of the lighter. Gerard drew a heavy breath, then started taking slow steps towards him. He was so close already, and he almost made it there, but in the last possible moment he slumped down at the rickety table with the ink blotch, heart thumping in his chest, head swirling.

He stared out the window at the sea for a while, letting the soft rippling of waves relax him. The ferry wasn't so bad in the evenings. It was quieter and friendlier, and it was easier to focus on the rhythmic cries of the seagulls, get lost in them and in his thoughts.

As he stole a quick glance at Frank, Gerard noticed Frank talking to the blond guy from the morning, perked up and laughing again, rocking in his seat.

Gerard was still watching when Frank jumped down from the stool and chased the guy back into the kitchen with a dirty white towel and a loud wail of, "Bob Bryar, you motherfucking ass!" Bob complained and got a half-hearted swat aimed at Frank's hip before he shouldered the door open and disappeared out of sight.

Frank shook his head, snickering to himself as he started wiping the counter. He noticed Gerard blatantly staring after a while of scrubbing, and threw the rag away, then jogged over to him.

"Hey! Did you want to order something?" he asked. He looked tired, but he was still managing a friendly smile for Gerard. "We're a little low on, well, just about everything on the menu. Bob's actually working on a new one, but uh. I could ask him to make you a sandwich? That guy's fucking ace at coming up with these totally random but totally awesome filling combos."

Gerard blinked. His throat felt scratchy like sandpaper. He still wasn’t hungry, but he felt like food was a pretty good conversation starter considering Frank’s job. "I, er. Sandwich is fine?" He flushed, neck burning hot under his scarves.

Frank nodded eagerly, patting himself down for a while until he found a tiny notepad and a ballpoint pen from his jeans' back pocket and fished them out. He scribbled something down, biting his lip, and asked, "Any allergies or dislikes?"

"Er. Not that I can think of?" Gerard croaked, and Frank flashed teeth, grinning from ear to ear.

"Anything to drink?"

"Coffee?"

Frank looked up from his pad. "It's like, half-past eight, dude. You think that's a good idea?" he asked with an air of seriousness.

Gerard blinked hard at him.

Frank kind of had a point, but. Coffee! It was also the first time a waiter had questioned anything Gerard had ordered, even all those times when he was shitfaced drunk and should have been guided out of the bar, no one did anything, not even once.

"Juice?" Gerard asked hesitantly, and bit his crooked lip. Frank seemed satisfied with it and wrote it down on the pad.

"Coming right up. Oh man, you just made Bob's whole day. You're his very first customer. He was worried he'd have to go through his first day at work without anyone ordering anything to eat."

Gerard gave him a weak smile, thinking Frank must only be so nice to him so that this Bob guy wouldn't be disappointed with his first at day work. But it wasn't like Gerard could blame Frank. Gerard was Bob's last hope.

"Awesome," he said with a dull voice, and watched as Frank jogged down into the kitchen just barely dodging tables and chairs.

By the time Frank came back with Gerard's sandwich and a large glass of orange juice, Gerard had smoked two cigarettes and opened and closed his art folders several times before accepting the fact that sketching just wasn't doing it tonight.

Frank put the plate on the table and bowed down on him. He said his own shitty version of _bon apetit_ that mostly just sounded like bonne appetite, and looked very pleased with himself.

"Wow, looks great," Gerard lied.

The sandwich looked somewhat questionable. Sprouts were bursting out of the crust, the white belly of the bread was soggy with yellow mayo, and some kind of deep red sausage inside the layers of wet wheaty toast peeked out crudely. It looked like the sandwich Gerard had eaten once on a car trip to Coney Island with his Mom, Dad and Mikey that had made him sick for hours. They'd had to park the car by a huge roadsign that was informing everyone with self-importance that you had just exited New Jersey, and Please Come Again while Gerard puked all over the plants. Gerard could still remember every detail like it was yesterday. He had gotten an Eak The Geek t-shirt from the gift shop as his mother's way of saying, 'I'm sorry, honey, next time we'll bring our own snacks', and Mikey hadn't said a word about not getting a shirt of his own; that's how pathetic Gerard had been.

He spared a glance at the sandwich on the plate under his chin, and swallowed hard. He would eat it, though. How could he not?

"Awesome! I'll let Bob know," Frank said happily, and, "Just holler if you need anything, okay?" he made Gerard promise before he found his way back to his chair behind the counter.

Gerard was still having a hard time not staring even though he was making some sort of an effort. He eyed his sandwich, then Frank, quickly turned to look at the seagulls and then Frank again. Frank obviously noticed because he laughed and waved, then ran into the kitchen, yelling something to Bob that Gerard couldn't make out of.

He hated himself for being intrigued.

 

\--

 

During the night that followed, Gerard didn’t get much sleep, and he was forced to wake up a whole hour before the alarm, distracted by his thoughts.

He had been appointed a meeting with The Boss next Monday about the could-be-bright-and-shining-future of Mother War And The Parade Of The Dead that he really couldn't afford to fuck up. If he ever wanted out of his low-paid, hard-working, boring-as-hell coloring job, he needed the meeting to go well. He knew there was something there, that his ideas could one day exist inside hardcovers and paperbacks instead of just the tunnels of his mind, but first he needed to convince The Boss about it, and his papers looked like they could use some serious touching up.

Gerard sat down by his usual table on the ferry, opened one folder. Picking a paper at random, he started fixing up shadows, adding more detail. He occasionally glanced at Frank’s direction with a flutter in his chest. Frank was busy pouring coffee and smiling at people, toying with their breakfast plates.

Gerard stared at his drawing, gnawing on the head of his pencil. He hadn’t gotten very far with it. It wasn’t even that good. The Parade was disappearing in the background while Mother War in her gasmask and brown dress was gazing up at their retreating backs. He needed to add some skeletal gazelles or some shit. Gazelles were fucking awesome.

He stopped pondering for a while and frowned. He had a strange feeling of being watched. He looked up, then made a noise because it was Frank, right there, standing by his table.

"Two sugars, no milk, right?" Frank asked. He was holding a large mug of coffee in one hand and a pack of cigarettes in the other, thumb pressed nicely on the flat back of a lighter that was resting on top of the pack.

Gerard didn't even remember how to blink.

"Um, that's right? But I didn't order anything."

"Oh, no, this one's on me," Frank said and took a seat opposite to Gerard.

Gerard opened and closed his mouth.

"Last night?" Frank pressed. "It takes some effort to get Bob to show simple feelings like excitement -- guy likes to roll his eyes and grunt a lot -- like his bullshit actually works on anyone -- but last night, oh man. When I told him you liked his sandwich? He couldn't stop grinning like a fucking moron the entire fuckin' night. It was actually a little pathetic," Frank snickered.

And yeah, this cleared things up nicely for Gerard. Frank and Bob were obviously such a steady couple that they lived together -- _entire fuckin' night_ \-- and Frank worshiped the ground Bob walked on.

Gerard forced a smile, and swallowed a nasty lump down his throat. He didn't understand this disappointment. He had known Frank for a day, not even that, just the time it took for the ferry to glide to Manhattan and back. Basically nothing. Twenty minutes at the most.

"I'm glad," he said lamely, looking down at his hands.

"Hey," Frank said. He had been in the middle of shaking a cigarette in the cup of his palm, but he stopped abruptly and gave Gerard a concerned look. "I -- are you? I didn't mean to force my company on you or anything, I just. I'm taking a break since it's a pretty quiet morning and there's no customers anymore, and just. Fuck, sorry, I'll just. Go. Like, right now. Sorry."

"I, but," Gerard started. He actually lunged forward and grabbed Frank's wrist before Frank could leave. Gerard wasn't sure what he was doing. He just really wanted Frank to stay.

"You don't have to," he said, even managing an awkward, half-smile that he was kind of proud of. "I, er, I'd like it if you stayed?"

Frank frowned, black bangs in his eyes, thumb still pressing against the lid of the lighter; there was something carved on its metallic surface that looked a lot like a heart and the letters 'NJ'.

"You sure?"

"Yeah, I, yeah," Gerard said, and quickly let go of Frank’s wrist.

Frank shrugged and sat back down.

"Okay," he said, looking doubtful. "But only if you're sure."

"I'm sure, like. Really really sure," Gerard said weakly, mentally flailing his arms, and did a bad job at ignoring the funny little flip his stomach made when Frank smiled widely at him.

 

\--

 

After a week of strange encounters with Frank, Gerard finally gave up and called Mikey for brotherly advice.

"So what else is new," Mikey said in his I'm-so-bored-with-this-subject-already and how-are-you-still-so-fucking-oblivious voice that Gerard had become annoyingly familiar with over the years.

On top of it all, Gerard could hear the distinctive sound of Poptarts being unwrapped on Mikey's side of the line, like this wasn't something Mikey thought needed his full attention.

"Okay," Gerard decided to humor him. Sometimes Mikey made sense. "Care to elaborate?"

Mikey was quiet for a while. Then he said with a thoughtful voice, "No? Not really, dude." He had passed the unwrapping stage and was now munching on his tarts, and the phone call was starting to feel like a bad idea to Gerard.

" _Mikey_ -"

"Okay okay, _fine_." Mikey clucked his palate and swallowed noisily. Gerard couldn't believe Mikey was the one losing his temper here. "It's like. You do this with everyone new. Do you remember how fucking long it took you to say a full sentence to Ray? And this Frank dude. Let him sell you a fucking coffee if he wants to. It's not like you don't like coffee."

"Yeah, but! He's fuckin' pushy as hell," Gerard defended. Anyone would get weirded out by Frank's forwardness. Anyone. Just yesterday evening Frank had fingered Gerard's Dawn Of The Dead hoodie and asked him what other zombie movies he was into. Then he had suggested some gay zombie film to Gerard because he looked like he'd be into ''fabulous and gay flesh-eating monsters'', not even being able to keep a straight face throughout the conversation.

"So let him be pushy," Mikey said. "Maybe it's his way of showing that he likes you."

Gerard choked on his spit.

"I mean, he'd probably wanna avoid you if he hated you," Mikey quickly reasoned.

"But he's with _Bob_! The awesomely cool chef dude!" Gerard wailed. The phone conversation was turning out to be one of the more awkward ones he'd had in a while.

Mikey made an 'eh' noise and Gerard could just tell he was giving him _that_ look. The one where lots of frowning was happening, and what generally made Gerard feel pretty dumb.

"The one who looks like a Viking? You're just assuming again. Like, what do you know? Have you ever actually seen them together, doing something... couple-y?"

Gerard considered this. He had seen Frank trying to climb Bob's back various times before. It could be his way of marking his territory. Gerard went to art school; he had seen people do weirder stuff than that. "He climbed on Bob?" Gerard offered, distractedly pulling at the telephone cord.

Mikey made another noise. This time it was somewhere between a thoughtful hum, and what you got when you had just stuffed your mouth with cakes and then attempted to answer a simple question.

He tried again. This time more successfully. "He's short, right? Maybe he was trying to reach something and didn't have any chairs near him?"

"It's a motherfuckin' café, Mikey! Of course there's chairs!"

"All I'm saying is," Mikey started. In the background Gerard could hear Mikey's doorbell ringing. "It's prob'ly Ray," he said after a while, then hung up.

Gerard blinked at his red batphone replica for at least a full minute. It was his only phone, a Christmas present from Mikey two years back. It had been the highlight of his Christmas. They had spent hours calling it on Mikey's cell phone, taking turns in being Bruce Wayne and Commissioner Gordon.

It was currently making irritable tooting sounds. He pushed the receiver away, feeling lonely and dejected.

 

Monday morning on the ferry and Frank was occupied with a new friend.

There was a pug the size of an adult tomcat circling Frank’s ankles and snuffing at his pant legs. It was the kind of dog that looked like it had run face first into a wall as a puppy. Gerard had always felt a strange fondness for their breed.

Frank was wiping the tables clean and whistling, occasionally dropping the dog treats from abandoned breakfast plates underhandedly. When he spotted Gerard, he smiled wide and waved him over.

"Just sit down right here and I'll bring you some coffee, okay?" Frank gestured at the table he had just finished cleaning, and laughed sharply when the dog waggled its tail at Gerard, tongue hanging from its mouth and all.

The dog didn't follow Frank back to the counter. Instead, it shuffled on the floor for a while and then jumped on the chair next to Gerard. They sat and stared at each other for a while, Gerard contemplating whether he should pat it on the head, the dog lolling its tongue and drooling on the chair.

When Frank came back with a large mug of black coffee -- for some reason Gerard always seemed to get the largest mug available -- even when he didn't select it from the cart himself -- the dog had started nosing Gerard's wrist and licking at his palm.

"Aw, man. I hope Jekyll's not bothering you," Frank said while offering the mug to Gerard. Gerard took it and watched as Frank scooped the pug up in his arms. He cuddled the dog and licked at its muzzle, and Gerard was fucking sold.

"Nah," he said, and burned his tongue on the coffee. "Ungk. You named it Jekyll...as in, Dr. Jekyll?" His eyes were watering.

The dog fussed a bit and Frank bit gently at the top of its head. "Yep," he said.

"He's beautiful."

Frank flashed Gerard a brilliant smile, the smile of a proud parent.

"He was my ex-girlfriend's dog, actually, but she had to move to this place that doesn't allow any pets." Frank jutted out his lower lip as if he was sad about the news, but it was obviously faked since the guy was practically bouncing on his heels. "His real name's Nacho," Frank leaned in to whisper, covering the dog's ears as if that would keep it from hearing the name. "But I'm trying to teach him out of it."

Gerard was confused. Ex-girlfriend? He didn't know what the fuck to think anymore. What about Bob The Viking cook/The _Boyfriend_? "Huh," was all he managed to say.

"Yea, but s'okay. He's always liked me better anyway. I just need to fatten him up, scrawny pets are the worst. I dunno what she's been feeding him, poor pug." Jekyll whimpered and licked at Frank's face, maybe begging for more snacks, everywhere it could reach.

Gerard kind of wanted to run away and pull them both into a big bone-crushing hug all at once. He settled for fiddling with the corners of his folders, and when he finally left the ferry, they were left forgotten on the table.

 

\--

 

Work was murder that day.

Gerard was twenty minutes late due to a sprout up construction site that definitely wasn't there yesterday. He had tried to sneak his way through the site, and even gotten halfway through before a fat man in blue overalls and a reflex vest noticed him and drove him away, calling him a motherfucker and a fag, a word he was so used to getting by now that it had completely lost its power. Nothing really could rival high school after playing Peter Pan in green tights for drama class.

He checked his calendar for any possible events that he could be late for, pink faced and sweaty, pulling at his scarves. There was a smudged scribble on the small square of today, which Gerard squinted to read.

"Son of a _bitch_ ," he swore, and tried to grab his folders, hands fumbling for ghost shapes on the desk, but nothing even remotely reminiscent of a folder stuck to his fingers. They _weren't there_ , because he had fucking lost them this morning, so distracted by Frank and his dog that he hadn't realized to pick the folders up from the table when he left.

And since when was the meeting supposed to be in the morning? He was sure he had marked it for the afternoon. He was so screwed.

Feeling defeated and more than a little helpless, he sprinted off to meet The Boss.

Vicky found him brooding two hours later in the break room.

"New character?" she asked, perching up on the table, white stockings and the hem of her short black dress over her thighs.

Gerard stopped drawing and glanced up. Vicky nodded at the white napkin with a stylized marker pen Frank holding equally stylized Jekyll in his black and white cartoony arms and staring up at Gerard.

Gerard wriggled uncomfortably in his chair, his ears were burning up. "Uh. He's the guy I get my coffee from," he said vaguely, watching half-horrified, half-curious where Vicky would go with this information. She was a nice person, but ever since she had started dating Ryland Blackinton -- in the right, but still very small circles a well-admired one-half of a cult-like college music duo, This Is Ivy League -- she had began to feel that everyone else should have Someone To Love, too.

She cooed and smacked her booted heels together with excitement. Then she made Gerard tell her all about Frank. When they were done, Vicky claimed to be the number one fan of their Bigger Than Life Love Story, and told him to make a move already unless he wanted her to make that move for him.

At the end of their conversation, Gerard's spirits had lifted some, but they weren't high enough to take him through the rest of the day with his head held high.

The meeting had been a flop, a disaster that could have been avoided so easily, if only he wasn't such a fucking failure, if only he hadn't fucked things up so bad.

At the end of the day, he was glad that he still had his stupid job to return to.

 

\--

 

Gerard's headache was reflecting his mood when he finally got back on the ferry that evening. He walked past two big guys leaning against a safety railing, shrinking deeper into his jacket, and did his best not to glare at them when they pointedly stopped talking and watched him go.

He had dressed up in his best and only suit for the occasion, hoping it would give him an air of professionalism. It was your basic black suit with a red and white striped tie, and it smelled like someone had died wearing it, and then spent his afterlife in the dumpster behind Gerard's apartment building until Gerard found him, rid him of his pants and jacket, and continued his journey upstairs.

Not that that was really what had happened.

The jacket's armpits were stiff from layers of deodorant Gerard had applied, not really covering the smell but adding to it. Gerard had deemed it fine, though, as long as you kept at an arm's length from him at all times.

Gerard looked around the place. He checked the chairs, and peeked under the table he sat by in the morning, but his folders weren't there. And fuck this shit, of all the days in his life he just had to lose them today. He sat down, frowned at the whole world and pressed his head down on folded arms.

"Gerard, hey."

It was Frank.

His hand dropped on Gerard's shoulder. Frank felt impossibly warm after the chilly evening air.

Gerard made a quiet noise. He didn't understand how Frank knew his name. He was sure he had never told it to him. In fact, he had spent the previous night wondering how he could still introduce himself in the least awkward way possible. He hadn't come up with anything.

"How d'you know m'name?" Gerard mumbled into his arms. The pressure on his shoulder increased momentarily, but just as suddenly it was gone. Under the table he could feel Frank's pug licking at his ankles.

"Here," Frank said, pushing something right-angled and worn under Gerard's arms. It was his art folders. Frank had kept them safe for him. "It says so inside. 'Property of Gerard Way'. I took a peek at your work." Frank's voice was quiet and reverent.

Gerard lifted his head and looked at Frank. There was that Hello My Name Is sticker again, now tacked on the chest of his skeleton apron, and reading 'PANSY' with easy flowers around the letters. His eyes were always pretty, but heavier in the evenings.

"Okay okay, I couldn't stop looking, like. Bob had to kick my ass to get me back to work," Frank confessed with a chuckle. "I think he just wanted to look at the sketches himself. 'Cause just. What you do... Fuck, it's all fucking incredible, man."

"Thanks," Gerard said with a dull voice. What did it matter how great his drawings were if he kept fucking up all the important meetings?

"I - shit, I hope you don't mind that I looked. I just, I got fucking curious as hell. You've been kind of a mystery to me. All I know about you is that you live and breathe coffee."

Gerard managed an unenthusiastic smile. He didn't even remember to freak out about Frank talking to him. Frank was pretty harmless anyway. "It's fine," he said.

"Like those Doom Patrol sketches? Fuckin' awesome, seriously," Frank gushed.

"You know Doom Patrol?" Gerard asked, momentarily forgetting to sulk. He could vaguely remember that boring afternoon when he was dicking around at work, sketching Cliff and Crazy Jane encased in something he'd rather not think about right now, and felt his face start to get hot.

Frank scoffed and rolled his eyes. "Well, _duh_ ," he said, and if Gerard hadn't been a complete goner for him before, he sure was now.

"Okay," he said. There was nothing short of genuine about that smile.

Frank paused, perched on the table, and just looked at Gerard in this concerned way that started to get kind of unsettling after a while. "Bad day, huh?" he finally asked.

"That's like, the understatement of the year."

"Had it something to do with forgetting these in here?" Frank nudged one of the folders with the tip of a finger. There was flaky black nail polish trying to break free from his fingernail.

Gerard grunted. Jekyll had settled down over his feet under the table. The pressure was warm and comforting, and Gerard just knew he would miss the presence when he had to leave.

"Shit, I'm sorry. I woulda like, brought it to you if I knew where you worked. Good job at writing down your name but no return address, dude."

"You woulda brought it to me?" Gerard asked with a frown.

Frank did that eyerolling thing again like Gerard was a complete moron for asking, and said, sincerely, " _Of course_ I woulda. That's what I said."

Gerard just blinked at him until Jekyll started fussing over his feet. The dog finally leaped from under the table onto Gerard's lap, licked Gerard's chin questioningly, maybe looking for scratches under its ears. Frank gave Gerard an apologetic look, and reached down to pick the pug up in his arms, looking like he was making to leave. But before he could walk away, Gerard quickly wrapped his hand around Frank's arm, just under the elbow, and stopped him.

"Thank you," Gerard said with as much feeling he could muster, and gave Frank a reassuring smile. He didn't want them to leave. He had just started feeling like a human again. Frank and his pug were currently saving his day.

Frank nodded, wide eyes and all, and before he settled back on the table with Gerard unnecessarily aiding him, he leaned down and planted a quick kiss on the crown of Jekyll's head, forehead almost brushing against Gerard's chin.

Frank's nose was kind of near Gerard's armpit, and Gerard was sure Frank could smell his god awful suit jacket. He fidgeted self-consciously in his chair.

"S'no problem," Frank said with a kind of calmness that Gerard wouldn't have necessarily connected to him. "I hope you're not like, in trouble or anything. At work, I mean."

"Nah," Gerard said. "It's just that I was supposed to present something to my boss. And I kinda like, blew up my chance." He rolled his hand around its axis before he pushed it into Jekyll's wrinkly skin: it was like sinking his fingers into a mass of solid waves. The dog tried to roll its head enough to reach Gerard's hand with its wet nose and lick his palm.

Frank made an appropriate noise, but it was the most genuine sound Gerard thought he had ever heard. "Tell you what?" Frank said, and then called out to Bob who had just come out of the kitchen. "Yo Bob, my man!"

Bob let out an audible grunt and turned to look at Frank.

"You save any of that cake you made for me yesterday?"

"Yeah?" Bob said. He gave Gerard a look that Gerard wasn't sure how to interpret.

"Well, then! Bring Gerard some of that! After today, he totally deserves a piece or two." Bob shrugged and shambled back in the kitchen, flipping Frank off when he yelled after him, "And coffee!"

"You really didn't have to do that," Gerard said, a little horrified. Bob looked like he could kick Gerard's ass any day.

"Oh please," Frank huffed. "S'awesome cake."

By the time Bob came back with a bigger-than-life piece of what looked like really rich pumpkin cake topped with a large dollop of vanilla ice cream and a big mug of black coffee -- Frank seemed to have given up with his no coffee after eight rule -- Frank was still sitting on the table, his foot pressing into the side of Gerard's thigh, easily chatting with him about comic books. Comic books was one of the safest subjects to choose from when you were trying to hold a conversation with Gerard, and Frank exploited it shamelessly, like he was _onto_ Gerard.

"So finally after our motherfucking long conversation is over, this dude," Frank pointed and grinned hard at Bob as the guy pushed the plate under Gerard's nose. "He's like, 'I can't believe you made me feel shitty about Superman' and then proceeded to sulk the entire fucking week. He wouldn't even cook for me, I had to resort to microwavable dinners. Felt like I was back in Rutgers even though I promised myself _never again_."

"Don't you have work to do?" Bob asked. He curled his finger around Frank's bangs and tugged hard enough to make Frank's whole face scrunch up.

Frank made a dismissive noise and pushed Bob away. "Waiting builds character."

"Wait till I tell Brian you said that." Bob winked at Gerard conspiringly.

"Ha. Brian loves me," Frank retorted, but he looked somewhat unsure of himself even as he said it.

"Keep telling yourself that," Bob said, shaking his head. Before he got back to work, he petted the dog and then Frank with similar affection.

Gerard watched him walk away. Frank had gone to Rutgers. Huh. Small world. He asked, though, "Who's Brian?"

"He's the owner," Frank said. "And the captain. He like, inherited the ferry from his granpa. Around these parts this is the only ferry that isn't owned by some big company."

"Huh, that's pretty awesome," Gerard said. Brian becoming the captain explained the disappearance of the old staff at least. Gerard wasn't generally a big fan of reforms, but he couldn't help but feel like this had been an improvement. He didn't even remember to miss old Edie very much.

He took a bite at the cake. It didn't look like much but it tasted pretty good, and it was already lifting his spirits higher than his chat with Vicky ever could have.

"I had no idea this was like, a private enterprise."

"That's the main reason I'm even working here," Frank said, conversationally. "Gotta support small businesses and the Schechters are old family friends."

Gerard would like to know if Frank was even real, because even with his ex-girlfriends and big dudes he occasionally liked to climb on and call them _his_ , Frank was just too awesome to exist. All Gerard managed was a croak, though, and then he quickly stuffed more cake in his mouth.

The ferry was quiet again, softly illuminated by big white bulbs on wires. The bulbs were wound around the pillars and Frank's counter, and they were the only visible sign of Edie that still remained. She always liked her evenings served with a dash of romance and atmospheric lighting.

Gerard had seen some possible customers lining up near the counter earlier, but Frank had managed to completely ignore each and every one of them. He was still sitting with Gerard, currently busy reprimanding Jekyll for trying to snack on Gerard's plate.

"Jekyll, stop, no, stop doing that!" he said, and pulled on its collar. "Hey, hello? I'm talking to you, you motherfucker. What the fuck? For Christ's sake. _Nacho_ , no!" The dog pricked up its ears upon hearing its old name, and looked around excitedly.

Frank let out a long, suffering sigh.

"I don't mind him eating this, really," Gerard tried to be helpful. "I'm actually really full already, that was a big piece. Besides, you told me you don't like scrawny pets."

"Doesn't mean he can just eat everything he sees." Jekyll made a pathetic noise and Frank relented. He put the dog on the table next to a tray full of dirty plates still waiting for Frank to take them back in the kitchen. Jekyll snuffed the plates for a while as if contemplating the supply until it finally settled for leftover eggs and bacon. It licked at the plate noisily while Frank scratched behind its ears.

They chatted the rest of the journey about Gerard's job. What had happened at the meeting today, and why Gerard was still pretty down about it.

Gerard told Frank all about his own concept, told him about Mother War, one of his favorite characters, how she was kind of the opposite of Brecht's Mother Courage, but more kickass.

Frank seemed really into the concept as well, and asked a lot of questions that Gerard was more than happy to answer. He was especially interested in the Parade of The Dead, a motley assortment of not-quite-your-ordinary heroes down in the underworld.

He made Gerard believe in his work in a way only Mikey had ever managed to, and Gerard's fingers itched to draw again; his head was full of ideas.

 

\--

 

Bob had a project of some sort going on, Gerard concluded on an early October evening on the ferry.

He had been pondering about this for a while now, over various platefuls of dishes he could only connect to Halloween. For some inexplainable reason, Bob had taken to cooking something new to him every evening, and Frank was more than happy to serve Gerard, giving him every bit of his attention and only ignored him when pay time came.

Gerard hadn't been paying for his food and coffee since the folder incident a couple of weeks ago. One night on the phone, Mikey had advised him to slip bills into Frank's back pocket, but they had both soon come to the realization that Frank's skinny jeans were probably too tight for it to work, and Gerard just wasn't suave enough try anyway.

"Dracula's Blood Soup?" Gerard repeated after Frank. He needed to bring Mikey here sometime because there were just some things you couldn't explain over the phone.

"Bob really outdid himself this time, huh?" Frank said with the same kind of excitement he always had for Bob's culinary experiments. Frank was Bob's biggest fan. They didn't seem to have crossed the line between friends and, well, something _more_ , though. Or if they had, they hid it really well.

The ferry in itself seemed to have gradually changed in clientele: where there once was a gray mass of workers on their way to Manhattan and back now swarmed with kids, young women and pensioners, all attracted to Frank like moths to fire. It would have been cuter if they didn't all crowd around Frank like he was the next Idol or something, and Gerard couldn't believe he had sunk so low that he was jealous of five-year-old pigtail girls and women older than Elena, all bad perms and smelling like sweeteners.

The young women were the worst. They moved in large groups and chatted noisily, getting into hysterics whenever Frank was nearby.

A pack walked past Gerard and Frank like a storm, giggles and noisy whispers, but Frank's eyes stayed on Gerard, expectant and pretty. "Aren't you gonna try it out?" he asked, and Gerard suddenly remembered he was supposed to eat the soup and give Frank his honest, unbiased opinion. So far he had only ever dared to praise the food. He wondered if they would ever end up on the menu.

Gerard pushed a tentative spoonful into his mouth. It was just tomato soup, which he was thankful for. He was the first to admit how awesome it would be to have real blood in Dracula's Blood Soup, but in the end, he just wasn't all that confident in his digestion's ability to handle it.

On a Wednesday evening Gerard finally found out what the strange dishes were all about.

"It's kinda totally lame, but that's what I asked for my birthday this year," Frank said with a flicker of a smile. "To have Bob cook for me something special each day in October until my birthday on Halloween."

Gerard had never met anyone with as much faith in someone else's abilities as Frank had.

"Your birthday's on Halloween?" he asked. He didn't know why he was so surprised about it. It looked like Halloween had vomited all over Frank, rubbed up against him, and then become his best friend for life. Everything about Frank screamed Halloween.

Frank grinned really fucking hard. "Coolest day ever, huh?"

Gerard agreed. Because, yeah.

"Was there a reason why I ate your present, though?"

Frank grinned harder. "Leftovers," he said.

"Oh."

"Dude, don't be that way!" Frank joked. "I only ever share with cool people." There was a tick of a pause before he added, "People I like."

Gerard was kind of pleased to notice that Frank's face was a nice shade of pink now; he was sure that his own one looked at least twice as red.

"So hey," Frank prompted after a beat. Gerard had slumped into silence again. But, what do you even say after something like _that_? "There's gonna be this totally lame party at my place on Halloween. It's kinda like, a tradition?"

"Sure," Gerard said, unsuspecting.

"I've always had them as far as I can remember. My mom's pretty into Halloween, too, and she used to always throw me these big spook parties when I was a kid, sometimes she had all the kids in the neighborhood come by, but mostly it was just me and her. And it'll kinda just, follow me to the end, I think. I doubt that I can go through Halloween without doing something and --" Frank took a breath. Gerard had never seen him nervous before.

"Would you like to come?"

Gerard blinked.

"To my place, I mean, on Halloween," Frank added quickly. His thumb was pressing hard on the inside of his hoodie cuff and there was a knoll on his mouth where his tongue was poking his lip ring.

"Oh!" Gerard said loudly. His ears were ringing.

It had been a long time since he was invited anywhere that didn't have something to do with his brother or his work, or Ray's heavy metal/hard rock get-togethers where Ray proceeded to thrum at his guitar all the while making comments about Campbell and how Persian Risk were totally the shit.

"It's gonna be just me and Bob and a couple of friends. Gabe's totally cool once you get over the weirdness factor. And I think you might like Nolan and Jesse. They can come off as a little...uh, pretentious, but not obnoxiously so. Um." He glanced up at the counter. There were people there, waiting to be served. "Just think about it, okay? I gotta get back to work." Frank said before jogging away.

Gerard watched as Frank chatted with a woman in her mid-thirties who was holding a little girl's hand. The girl had black hair in braids peeking out from the trimming of her hat and a stuffed cotton ghost under her arm.

Frank winked at the kid and climbed over the counter, dropping down to his knees, eye-level with her. He reached up and took a handful of candy from a glass jar on the counter, smiling at the kid as he pushed colorfully wrapped sweets into the girl's kelly green parka pocket. Her mother said something Gerard couldn't make out of, and the kid reached up on tiptoes, wrapped her tiny arms around Frank's neck, and kissed his cheek.

And yeah, as much as Gerard hated parties where he didn't know the majority of the people, he'd have to go this time.

He'd do it for Frank.

 

Gerard woke up at four in the morning with his hand around his dick and his boxers wet and sticking to his pubes. He couldn't remember what or who he had dreamed about, but he could guess.

It was Saturday with Sunday weather: cloudy, grey and calm. The Cartoon Network was the only noise in Gerard's tiny apartment, occasionally coupled with the crunch crunch crunch of dry Lucky Charms against teeth.

Mikey let himself in around noon with his spare key. Gerard hadn't moved from the bed since changing boxers and throwing on his frayed Planet of the Apes t-shirt, fishing the 'Charms from behind the nightstand and struggling the TV on; it was always a fucking struggle with the TV.

He was in the middle of smoking a cigarette and digging his fingers in his eyes in hopes of scraping the yellow sleep grit out. He was doing a pretty good job at it, too, occasionally glancing at his fingers with mild fascination before flicking them and wiping them on his shirt, but Mikey's rattling somewhere in the vicinity of the kitchen was becoming distracting.

Gerard hadn't seen Mikey since Movie Monday two weeks ago. Work had been kind of crazy lately, and Mikey spent most of his free time with Alicia these days.

Alicia was a pretty girl with huge potential of possibly maybe being The One for Mikey.

She belched louder than any Way male when she drank, the way she did her eyes made Gerard think of raccoons, and she had always been Gerard's favorite out of all the girlfriends Mikey'd ever had. He could totally forgive her for getting in the way of Mikey-Gerard time.

Movie Mondays used to start religiously at nine o'clock every Monday evening and last till the small hours, but eventually grown-up stuff got in the way of things, just like it had happened to most customs the brothers had adopted as kids. It was a shame, but there wasn't really anything that could be done about it.

Eventually Mikey found his way to the bedroom.

Flopping down on the bed by Gerard's feet, he quirked a brow at him.

"Your neighbors get weirder by the minute."

"Who did you run into?" Gerard asked curiously. "Eddie or Mrs. Blumenkrantz?"

Eddie was what Gerard could only refer to as a howler. He had dark circles under his eyes that Gerard guessed were a direct result of his nighttime activities. Eddie didn't talk to people, just eyeballed them through his window or the crack of the front door. Eddie was also one of the reasons for Gerard's sleeplessness. His howling sounded louder than any alley cat or car could ever manage.

Mrs. Blumenkrantz was a textbook grandmother with rolls in her hair, wrinkly feet in pink slippers, and she always had cinnamon-scented hugs to share.

Mikey made a face. "Neither. It was Jimmy," he groaned, rolling onto his stomach, spindly arms folding under his chin.

Gerard grimaced with sympathy, and reached with his big toe to pat at Mikey's elbow. "Did he try to get you into wet paper towel war again like last time? I swear I have to pull my hood over my head every time I walk past his door."

"He wanted me to test taste some cookies he apparently baked for Chantal."

Chantal had tawny hair that got stuck in her lipstick in the wind. She talked like she wasn't ashamed of anything, and made sure Jimmy stayed out of the troubles that could end up being too much for him. She was the kind of girl Gerard thought he would be attracted to if he was attracted to women in general.

Jimmy though, Jimmy was a disaster.

"I hope you declined," he said, horrified.

"Duh," said Mikey, craning his head to look at Gerard, and quirked another brow at him. "Maybe if they'd been chocolate, chocolate chip. I could see that he had tried to make them animal-shaped, though, but they'd ended up looking like roadkills."

Five years in art school had introduced Gerard to very eccentric people, but none of them had prepared him for Jimmy Euringer. 'Urine' read on his mailbox in red marker pen that he had borrowed from Gerard and never returned. The word was next to the 'no ads’ sign on the box, and there was a picture of his head attached to a picture of a bulldog on the front door with text inside a speak bubble reading, 'I GUARD HERE'.

Sometimes Gerard considered abandoning Mother War and The Parade of The Dead, and instead working on a comic about the apartment house he lived in. With Jimmy, Eddie and Mrs. Blumenkrantz, he had a feeling it would be a hit. He would make himself the main character of course, the poor, average dude, too addicted to coffee for his own good and working a shitty job. He'd maybe even have powers, which would obviously need to be maintained by various coffee products. But yeah, that thought still probably needed some creative thinking.

"He was probably going for roadkills," Gerard sighed, thinking his life would be so much more boring if it wasn’t for his neighbors.

They sat in mutual silence for maybe half an hour until Mikey pushed up from the bed and went around the room collecting clothes at random, throwing them at Gerard.

"Get up, we're going for a ride," he said with determination, tugging a pair of socks into a ball and chucking it at Gerard's forehead.

Mikey had that look on his face, the one that Gerard had learned to connect to awkward times for himself. He followed though, with calculated steps.

 

\--

 

"When you said 'a ride' I didn't think you meant on a ferry."

It was safe to say that Gerard was worried, very, very worried. He could guess what Mikey was up to. Mikey had that slightly maniac look glued to his face that most people would interpret as bored, but Gerard knew better.

"Of course you knew," Mikey grinned, but he was still speaking in his deadpanned monotone.

And, yeah, maybe he had known, on some level. And he could still leave. The car was there and the ferry wasn't even at the platform yet: it was still a tiny spot on the horizon. It was just that, well, there was a part of him that really wanted to know what would happen, was pretty much dying to know, and besides, it was the weekend, Frank might not even work the weekends; Gerard couldn't believe he had never cared to find out about that.

And he wanted Mikey to meet Frank. It was just that he was worried. It was usually Mikey who introduced new people into their lives. Last time Gerard had done it, it had ended really fucking badly.

"Dude, are you like, freaking out again?" Mikey asked, looking almost guilty. Gerard had been quiet for a while and Mikey was a good brother, he could tell when Gerard was freaking out.

Gerard shuffled his feet on the planks on the platform, staring intently out in the sea. The waves were nonexistent today, and there was seasonal fog blanketing the waters.

"Nah," he said finally with a short shrug of shoulders. "It's just. This is like. I'm just thinking it's like introducing Frank to the family, to _you_ , which is like, a big fucking deal." Gerard fished out his smokes with unsteady hands.

Mikey mmm'ed and helped Gerard with his lighter. "I don't think it counts though, since you're not dating or anything."

"It still so totally counts," Gerard exclaimed with smoke curling above his head. He had never really introduced any possible relationship candidates to Mikey, not even Bert, and Bert had felt like a really big deal for a while. He was kinda nervous about what Mikey would think of Frank.

"You worry way too much, Gee," Mikey said like he knew exactly where Gerard's mind had wandered off to. He sighed, and gently fist-stroked Gerard's cheek. "I don't know how you sleep at night with so much worrying."

Gerard cracked a smile. "That's just it. I don't sleep much, you know I don't."

Mikey mmm'ed again, and wrapped his bony arm around Gerard's shoulders, their heads bumping.

Together they watched the gliding of the ferry, so soft all the way to the platform.

 

\--

 

Frank was working, it turned out, when Mikey and Gerard got aboard. Clad in comfortable clothes and his skeleton apron, hands hidden inside fingerless skeleton gloves, he was bustling around getting the tables clean. He was humming a Misfits song, snickering quietly to himself when his pug tried to whine along with his humming.

"So that's Frank," Mikey said still in his monotone. They had just climbed wooden steps up from the lower deck and were now standing in the doorway, people trying to push past them into the café with frowny faces and muttering 'motherfuckers' under their breaths.

"That's Frank," Gerard repeated with a flutter in his chest.

"Cool," Mikey said with a grin, and began to tug at Gerard's jacket collar, practically dragging him all the way to Frank.

Frank was eyeing the brothers with guardedness as they made past the tables. He gave Gerard a small smile and glanced curiously up at Mikey.

"Frank," Gerard said after a hard shove to the back. "Um. Hi, er. I'm just spending some time with my brother, Mikey," he continued awkwardly, shooting a dirty look at Mikey before adding, "Even though he's a total pain in the ass."

Mikey rolled his eyes and extended a hand at Frank.

"And Gerard's a complete joy to have around," he said with sarcasm.

Frank's guardedness subsided in a split second, and he was grinning wide and genuine when he shook Mikey's hand.

"Hey, dude, Gerard's pretty fuckin' cool," Frank protested with that big damn smile. Gerard was surprised his face hadn't gotten stuck that way over years of hardcore grinning.

It wasn't that usual for Frank to work during the weekends, they found out over mugs of coffee and huge slices of pumpkin pie, but Frank had been needing more money ever since his car broke down two weeks ago, and besides, he had Jekyll to feed now.

"But I'm not complaining," Frank was quick to add. There were dark circles under his eyes that Gerard wanted to trace with the pads of his thumbs. "This place has started to feel like a second home to me."

And it was true, Gerard could tell just by the changed atmosphere of the ferry. There was a certain feel of homey disorder about the place: mugs with cartoony vampire prints mixing with the usual black and white ceramic mugs in the cart, soft cushions on a chair at the counter where Frank obviously liked to curl up when it was quiet, a cardboard box pillowed by a blanked for Jekyll to sleep in one corner. Bob was only a few steps away in the kitchen with his pots and pans and ready company, and the stairs behind the counter--that Gerard had never seen anyone use until Frank-- lead straight down to Brian's deck.

Bob joined the motley rabble after a while, and got along with Mikey right away, like they were just old friends catching up. It was all painfully normal, Gerard found himself thinking, as he watched the guys debating over B class horror movies, Bob getting flustered and defensive when Mikey and Frank ganged up on him.

The toe of Frank's sneaker brushed against Gerard's ankle under the table, and he felt as though he should have had this years ago, this perfect sense of belonging, and he wondered why he never did.

 

\--

 

Ray joined the party downtown Manhattan because Ray was a curious motherfucker and wanted to ride the ferry back with Gerard and Mikey. Gerard hadn't even seen Ray for months, so it must have been Mikey who told him about Frank. Mikey was a worse tell-tale than Vicky without realizing it. The gossiping was kind of accidental. Mikey just happened to mention stuff without really thinking anything of it.

Ray and Frank bonded over their mutual love for concert life and guitars, and before they got ready to leave, Ray invited Frank over to play some riffs at his place, exchanging phone numbers and everything, and fuck this shit. Gerard had known Frank for what, almost a month and he hadn't even known Frank's last name until Ray came and asked it, just like that. Gerard felt mutually grateful for Ray for giving him this new piece of information and pissed off at himself for completely failing at talking to Frank.

Gerard was also concerned that Frank was only now beginning to realize how boring Gerard actually was; so boring compared to Mikey and Ray.

"So hey," Frank said when they were ready to leave, pulling Gerard aside with his hand on Gerard's forearm. Mikey gave them a look and a grin, ushering Ray down the stairs even though Ray looked as though he would have so liked to finish their little chat about hardcore punk vs. crust metal.

"Thanks for, you know, bringing your brother and Ray to meet me. I -- Mikey, especially. I don't. I've never really seen siblings have a bond like yours. It must be great to have someone like that. Like, you don't ever have to feel lonely?" Frank was rambling again. His eyes were shining and his hand was still gripping Gerard's arm tightly.

"I guess, yeah," Gerard said, but in a flush of honesty, he quickly added, "Mikey's always been the most important person in my life. We share pretty much everything; he's helped me through some really bad times. Still is." Gerard hoped Frank wouldn’t ask him about those bad times right now. He didn’t really feel like ruining the moment by talking about his depression and drinking problem.

Frank nodded gravely, then tugged Gerard into a warm hug. Gerard hugged him back awkwardly with one arm for a while until Frank pulled away, mumbling a 'thank you' into Gerard's shirt collar. Gerard wasn't exactly sure what Frank was thanking him for, but he squeezed the ball of Frank's shoulder in what he hoped was a reassuring way, and smiled at him behind a messy curtain of hair.

Frank sobered up and stepped away from Gerard's personal space.

It got immediately colder without him there.

"Growing up it was always just me and my mom. I mean, she's completely amazing but sometimes a boy just wants other boys to hang out with."

Gerard made a sympathetic noise. Frank looked young, more so than Gerard had ever noticed before.

"She didn't really let me out very much. She didn't think it was safe. And I was sick a lot, I guess she didn't want me to make it worse."

Gerard wondered if it'd be okay to hug Frank again. This time he would do it right.

"We weren't allowed outside much either," Gerard said, completely still. The nails of his fingers were biting painfully into his palms, half-moon dents in his skin. That's how much restraint it took not to hug Frank.

"I wish we had known you back then, you coulda hung out with Mikey and me."

Frank's smile was full and huge, and he hugged Gerard again so fast Gerard didn't have time to react to it.

"You should get going now," Frank said with a pat on his back, starting to push Gerard towards the stairs. "We're taking off real soon."

Gerard made a noise of protest, but started hurrying down the stairs when a horn blew signaling the departure of the ferry.

"I'll see you," he yelled all the while trying to avoid bumping into random passengers on his way downstairs.

Frank giggled and waved with his whole arm, yelling, "You know where to find me," back at him.

 

\--

 

Gerard spent the rest of the weekend trying to keep his mouth shut about Frank. Mikey had been so good to him lately, dragging him to see Frank and everything, and even though Mikey seemed to have deemed Frank as part of the family already, it didn't mean Mikey wanted to listen to him heart-bleeding about Frank twenty-four seven.

Gerard was proud of himself for doing so well, but Mikey didn't give him any credit, just dangled his legs over the arm of Gerard's old armchair and stuffed his face with the treasures of Gerard's cupboards (more Lucky Charms and fruit roll-ups), occasionally communicating with him by quirking his eyebrows in a meaningful way.

They sat like this most of Sunday, Mikey eating and Gerard smoking, while they watched old VHS tapes with MonsterVision recordings. Those tapes were the only reason Gerard hadn't introduced his old crappy video player to the garbage dump.

Alicia came to pick up Mikey in the evening.

"Gerard!" she smiled into Gerard's neck, smelling like spring flowers and cigarettes. "How's my favorite guy in the whole world doing?"

And yeah, Gerard kinda really loved this girl.

"I'm doing pretty great, actually," Gerard said just as Mikey yelled a pointed, "Hey! You told me I was your favorite guy!"

Alicia tutted and arranged Gerard's hair behind his ears affectionately. She made Gerard sit on the couch and tell her all about Frank, and it made Gerard happy because he'd just been dying to tell someone about him all day, someone new but trustworthy, someone still genuinely interested to know, and Alicia sighed and aww'ed in all the right parts of the story, prompting Gerard to tell her more.

Mikey watched the exchange with quiet amusement, eating his dry 'Charms like popcorn in the movies.

"And then there's that Halloween party I'm supposed to go to, but _god_ , I don't even know what to _wear_ ," Gerard moaned, leaning his head on Alicia's shoulder.

"You could go as you are and say you're the embodiment of a pathetic lovesick loser," Mikey suggested helpfully, grinning smugly from ear to ear like he had just come up with something really great. He earned a hard kick in the knee from Alicia.

"What!" Mikey whined, rubbing his hurt. "I was just sayin'."

"You could go as a vampire," Alicia smiled kindly and ignored Mikey altogether. "I mean, you're pale enough as it is. It would totally work."

Gerard let out a considering noise. One could never go wrong with vampires. "I don't even know for sure if it's a costume party," he sighed unhappily. "I can't believe how hard I fail at communication."

"Oh please," said Alicia with her arm around Gerard's shoulder. "It took me like a whole month to figure out Mikey was flirting with me. He always looked really spacey and said the most random things."

" _Hey_ ," Mikey said pointedly for the second time that evening. "I'm right here!"

"Of course you are," Alicia patronized him while Gerard watched as Mikey made a dramatic exit into the kitchen. It would have probably been even more dramatic if the kitchen wasn't right there, three feet behind Mikey's back, not even a door to slam noisily at their faces.

Alicia rolled her eyes and disentangled from Gerard and the couch. Behind the wall Eddie was howling to the full moon.

'Love you' she mouthed to Gerard before she stepped into the kitchen with a, "Come on, grumpyface! Let's go feed the cats."

Mikey protested for a while but gave in with a muffled snort when she started blowing raspberries into his neck.

Gerard thought it fascinating, watching them work, but he ached to have that with someone, someone special, and sometimes he couldn't help but wonder what it was, what was so wrong about him that he couldn't find anyone to share his life with.

He spent the rest of the evening with his smokes and TV, listening to Eddie, contemplating his life, and everyone else's lives, until he fell asleep on the couch.

 

\--

 

The weeks leading up to Halloween whooshed past Gerard like a rocket.

Work made it hard to focus on anything and consumed all of his time, free or on the clock. The only moments where he found himself being completely detached from work were those he got to spend with Frank on the ferry. Frank made it impossible to focus on anything work-related, which Gerard was grateful for. He needed those moments, learned to anticipate them with comforting heat in his stomach whenever he was making his way down to the harbor.

Gerard hadn't been able to get a new meeting with The Boss arranged, he couldn't even find time for the comic anymore, but he was so preoccupied with finding a costume -- Frank had said the party was costumes optional, but would be disappointed if no one saw the trouble of finding something awesome to wear -- that he didn't even remember to worry much about the comic.

On the evening of the party Gerard managed to freak out every thirty minutes, and only got even more anxious when Mikey reminded him that dude, Frank seemed to really like him.

He tried to ignore Mikey's heavy sighing as he sniffed at his armpits for the twentieth time that night and contemplated on an actual shower. He had sprayed deodorant all over his shirt earlier, but a nagging something was telling him that it just didn't really cut it this time.

Mikey said, "Dude, just make it quick, Ray should be here any minute."

Gerard caved and sprinted to the shower.

Gerard wasn't sure if he should feel relieved or worried that Frank had told him to bring Mikey and Ray with him, and oh god, he needed to jerk off again, just to calm himself down enough to even get there without having a major breakdown in the street or worse, in front of _Eddie_.

"I can hear you, dude!" Mikey yelled, slightly panicked, somewhat disgusted, through the hum of the shower, and Gerard clamped his mouth shut, banging his forehead against the wet tiles.

 

\--

 

The party consisted of Frank and Bob, a very obnoxiously loud guy in zebra-print tights, rectangular sunglasses with hot pink frames and a neon green top ( _"I guess we know who the Most Ridiculous Costume In The History Of Fucking Ever Award goes to, Gabe."_ ), two guys leaning against the kitchen counter engrossed in a conversation about the variations of homemade punch, and Mikey, Ray and Gerard, awkwardly scanning the tiny apartment. In the background a Black Flag record was playing.

"You made it!" came Frank's chipper voice from the couch. He quickly detached himself from Bob's lap and ran over to Gerard and the guys. He tacklehugged Gerard, puffing laughter into Gerard's neck through the green Halloween mask on his face.

"Monster of Frankenstein?" Gerard asked when Frank finally let go of him. Suddenly he felt less self-conscious about his Wal-Mart vampire canines and cloak that he had bought on a whim when everything else had failed and the time was running out.

It seemed like only Gerard, Frank and Gabe had bothered with costumes, though. Gerard was trying his best to avoid eye-contact with the guys in the kitchen.

"Blood thirsty vampire?" Frank pushed the mask over his forehead and grinned. Then he turned to Mikey and Ray, wearing a completely sincere expression on his face as he said, "Hi guys, thanks so much for coming over. I know Halloween's a busy day for everyone."

"No problem, dude, we were more than happy to come! Happy birthday," Ray said while Mikey poked Gerard in the back and signaled him to give Frank his present.

"Oh!" Gerard squeaked. "Uh, here, happy birthday," he said with his face burning hot as he pushed the present into Frank's hands.

Frank's face was pink when he untied the bow and rolled the artwork open. His eyes scanned over the paper with a carefully limned scene from the original Frankenstein movie Gerard had spent most of last weekend watching and taking notes from, and he didn't say anything for a very long time.

That was when Gerard started freaking out again. Oh god, he thought, and wanted to hide behind his stupid cloak. Frank _hated_ it. Of course he did. And Gerard just knew he should have gone for a DVD or a CD, something real and not _stupid_.

"This is," Frank finally croaked, his eyes wide and intent. He tried to make eye contact with Gerard who was busy staring a hole into Frank's clean white wall. "It's -- I, it's amazing, thank you."

He sounded strangely moved.

When he pulled Gerard into a slow hug, he was so careful not to crumple up the artwork, dangling it in his fingers behind Gerard's back. He breathed into Gerard's neck for a while, then softly pressed his mouth up against Gerard's cheek, and whispered, "I love it, it's perfect."

Gerard held Frank close, heart hammering in his chest for a completely different reason than it had done a moment ago.

"I'm so glad you like it," he mumbled. Frank's plastic mask was digging painfully into his cheekbone.

Gerard had been anxious about the present ever since he realized that he needed to get Frank something. He had wanted it to be special, something Frank would really like to get, but at the same time something reasonably prized. As much as he wanted to get Frank an original model monster from one of Frank's favorite movies, Gerard would have needed to go in the life of crime to be able to afford it. And besides, expensive gifts only make the gift-getter feel uncomfortable and guilty, and that just sucks for everyone.

"Homosexual monster shenanigans?" Gabe yelled from the couch, lifting his drink to Frank and Gerard while holding Frank's pug under his left arm. "My kinda party!"

Frank shot him the bird. Jekyll tried to squirm away.

"Anyway," Frank said, grinning sheepishly at Gerard, Ray and Mikey. "I'll give you guys a quick tour around the place. Uh, that's John and Jesse in the kitchen -- they're really more Bob's friends than mine, er. Bob's room's down the hall to the left and mine's to the right."

"Bob's room?" Mikey interrupted. Gerard could tell Mikey was trying to do him a favor by asking about Bob, and even though he was almost completely sure they were just friends, he was still getting nervous.

Frank giggled. "Oh man, didn't I ever tell you we live together?"

Mikey raised his eyebrows and stared at Frank. Gerard's stomach made an unhappy, suspicious lurch.

"Live together," Mikey repeated, voice getting a bit cold.

"Unfortunately," came Bob's voice from behind Gerard's back. When Gerard glanced up at him, Bob gave him an amused smirk. "We've been roommates since I moved here from Chicago during Frank's freshman year in college."

The tension he had felt all through his muscles deflated, and Gerard kinda wanted to hug everyone in the room. Ray was looking at him funny though, so he quickly sobered up.

Brian arrived just ten minutes after Gerard and the guys.

He was still wearing his skipper's cap and a marine-blue jacket that revealed two arms full of tattoos when he shrugged out of it. Brian looked like the lovechild of a sailor and a rock star.

Gerard had seen Brian sometimes, walking past with a word or a wave for Frank, but not often at all, so when Brian grinned warmly at Gerard and took his hand into a friendly shake, Gerard didn't really know which way to turn.

"Gerard, right?" Brian said, then leaned close to whisper on the sly, "Frank has not been able to shut up about you for weeks."

"Brian!" Frank whined and struggled to pull Brian out of Gerard's personal space. "Was he telling secrets about me, Gerard?" he asked with a pout. Gerard made an embarrassed little noise, not sure how to respond.

Brian rolled his eyes and pulled away from Frank. "Always," he said and completely ignored Frank who was poking his tongue out at him.

Ray quickly found his way over to Bob's room with the promise of a Halo match -- "Dude, good luck, Bob's fucking ace at that game."

Mikey made friends with Gabe, Jesse and John, and Gerard thought he fit right in; like he had always belonged to that group.

Brian said, "I'll just, er, mingle?" when Frank shot him a pointed look, and quickly disappeared into Bob's room as well.

Gerard stuffed his fingers into his pockets and chewed on his bottom lip. He could tell something was up.

They were still standing in the hall by Frank's room, and Frank was rolling his weight on his soles, rocking back and fort, looking like he was trying to think of something to say.

"Thanks again," he finally spoke. "For the present. After seeing your sketches and now this, you're totally my favorite artist."

Gerard ducked his head and smiled behind his hair.

"I mean, it's not like I know much about art -- like, okay, _anything_ , but I know what I like when I see it, and I saw this an' _god_ , sorry," Frank snorted and palmed his face so hard that his nose got red. "What I'm trying so eloquently say here is that I really love that piece. You're awesome. I'm totally a big fan."

"Cool," Gerard said, pleased with himself. "You're my first fan ever." Then he mentally kicked himself because, what the fuck? He did not want to think of Frank as a 'fan' and Frank was totally just joking around anyway.

Mikey said something in the living room and the whole place cracked up.

Gerard gave Frank's hapless carpet a disgusted look all the while wondering why Mikey had to get all the conversationalist genes. Everybody loved him and he didn't even have to try.

Frank huffed a laugh, shaking his head. His face was completely sweet when he grabbed Gerard's arm and started dragging him into the kitchen.

"Come on, dude, let's get you something to drink."

And yeah, that right there was one of the reasons why Gerard had been so on the edge about the party. _Sorry, but I'm an alcoholic_ , was just not what he considered a fun opener.

Once in the kitchen, Frank opened the fridge and got out two Red Bulls, pushed one of them into Gerard's hands, and said, "So guess what? Mikey called. Well actually, it was Ray who called but Mikey wanted to talk, too, and I can't believe your friend knows my phone number when I haven't even given it to you yet." Frank sucked in a breath. "You've got some really great people on your side. They're all looking out for you."

Gerard was embarrassed.

And grateful.

But mostly just embarrassed.

He couldn't remember the last time he had had to take care of Mikey, for the longest time it had been the other way around.

"Huh," Gerard got out before he quickly took a gulp from his Red Bull. He was a big fan of Red Bull, and he wondered if Mikey had told Frank that as well. Frank looked at him expectantly, so he added, "You can -- it's not. You can have a beer if you want. It's not--" He slammed his eyes shut tight and ground his teeth. The Red Bull was pushing up from his stomach.

Frank stared at him. Then he leaned in and brushed Gerard's hair out of his eyes, touching his shoulder. "Gerard? Are you okay? I don't want a fucking beer, I wanna talk to you, okay?"

"I just. _God_." Gerard scrubbed his face. "You're so fucking nice to me, I've never -- I don't know how to take that. You're so fucking nice." He knew he was babbling. He was glad they were the only people in the kitchen. The last thing he wanted was to cause a fucking scene.

"Okay," Frank said, hand still cupping Gerard's shoulder. "I can try to be less nice from now on if you want?" He gave Gerard a grin like he was just kidding around but he also looked somewhat like he was being serious.

"God no, I didn't -- unless you want to stop being nice to me, I mean, it's your call, I --"

Frank reached up and kissed him then.

It was just a quick press of lips against lips. He even missed Gerard's mouth a little, so it was really just the corner of Gerard's mouth that got kissed, and Frank was gripping Gerard's shoulders kind of painfully as he tried to balance on his toes. The kiss was a thousand times more special than Gerard could have ever imagined.

Jekyll escaped from Gabe's arms and ran into the kitchen, whining and panting affectionately against Gerard's legs with paws against his shins.

"Hey buddy," Gerard said, still a little light-headed and confused -- _Frank kissed me, Frank kissed me_ \-- and put his Red Bull on the kitchen counter, picked the dog up in his arms. His lips were wet and he couldn't stop wondering if it was his spit or Frank's.

Frank laughed his somewhat obnoxious, broken laugh that Gerard would have found irritating on anyone else. "He really likes you."

"He's a smart dog," Gerard replied cheekily, and Frank said, ''Duh,'' kinda leaning into Gerard's chest and the pug, like that one time on the ferry.

"Good taste," Frank agreed with his voice all muffled in Jekyll's wrinkles.

Gerard mmm'ed and detached his fingers from the dog's wrinkly skin, forced them steady as he gently touched the back of Frank's neck. Frank made a noise in the back of his throat not unlike the whimpers Jekyll always made, and Gerard petted his head, too, not really even sure what he was doing.

"Come on, I think he's hungry," Frank said eventually, pulling away from Gerard.

At the mention of food, Jekyll squirmed out of Gerard's arms and started circling around Frank who was collecting different kinds of dishes from the table, piling them onto a paper plate. There were baked potatoes and mashed potatoes and some vegetable stuff, muffins and cakes and pies, and christ, Bob really seemed to have outdone himself. It was pretty endearing to find actual food in the apartment of two twentysomething guys.

"What?"

"Oh, nothing," Gerard said with a sly grin. "Just. Alotta food."

Frank snorted, and nudged Gerard's side with his elbow. "Bob has three great passions in life: Xbox, sound systems and cooking. Well. He's only just now started to cook, like, weeks before he got Brian to hire him as a chef. Before that he just made us dinner because he was disgusted with the amount of micro food in our fridge. I mean, the guy's a genius, but to be honest, I have no idea how he got the job."

"With my impeccable charms," came Bob's voice from the doorway. Gerard startled, and Frank looked up guiltily.

Bob barked a laugh at Frank's expression and grabbed a beer from the table. Frank grinned at him, then started bustling around with the food and his dog.

For the rest of the evening Gerard watched as Gabe and Mikey dirty danced on the living room floor and took R-rated camera phone pictures for Alicia because she was a big fan of those things. He watched Ray encasing in a chat with Bob, and John and Jesse drinking beer in the corner next to the stereo. It was a pretty lame party, if he was completely honest with himself, at least compared to the ones he had gone to while drunk. He kinda liked it this way.

Frank laughed and jumped around and played with his dog, and Gerard watched that, too, smiling wide whenever Frank looked his way.

Brian sat down next to Gerard sometime in the evening and asked him questions about his life, _personal_ questions. He patiently waited while Gerard struggled to answer them, then patted his thigh with a, "Nice to meet you, Gerard. You hurt my friend, I kick your ass. Or Bob kicks your ass. It's ambiguous."

Gerard didn't really get where Brian was going with this. He chewed on his bottom lip with his fake fangs and nodded, wondering why he had just gotten the third degree, and why Brian hadn't gone around bullying Mikey and Ray as well. It felt like everyone was onto Gerard or something, and it was a little unnerving.

Gerard had a feeling Vicky would have loved to be a fly on the wall this evening, and he was really fucking glad that she wasn't.

When the record ended, Frank put a new one in and grabbed Gerard’s arm, grinning invitingly as he pulled Gerard into the hallway with him.

 

Frank's room was the only place in the apartment that looked suited for Halloween. He had a variation of tiny plastic toy vampires, zombies and werewolves on his desk, and there was a really cool mirror on one wall with frames shaped and painted to resemble nothing less than Dracula himself.

"Cool," Gerard breathed as he peered into the mirror. Jack Skellington marionette hung close on the wall.

Frank's grinning face appeared behind him after he had carefully closed the door. Some time in the evening he had managed to misplace his mask, and his hair was a mess.

"I got it from dad one Halloween when I was a kid. He said to be extra careful if I couldn't see someone's reflection in the mirror, 'cause then I'd met a real vampire."

"Oh." Gerard deflated in his Wal-Mart cloak. His mirror image looked disappointed with himself. "Hate to disappoint you but I think your mirror blew my cover."

Frank giggled and wrapped his arms around Gerard's waist, leaned his cheek on one shoulder blade and nuzzled his face there. "Silly," he said. "If I wanted a vampire I'd go to graveyards and shit."

"Frank." Gerard removed Frank's hands from his waist and turned around. Frank looked confused, and Gerard took a leap of faith and kissed him with his plastic vampire teeth and everything.

Frank quickly locked his arms around Gerard's neck, eagerly kissing him back, tongue licking into Gerard's mouth. Frank's teeth clashed with Gerard's stupid fangs, and he giggled, trying to kiss him around them.

"I thought you'd never do that," Frank murmured against Gerard's jaw after a while, and then kissed him again, slow and deep.

Gerard grinned, pulling away a little as he kissed the tip of Frank’s nose. He was really fucking happy he had come to the party. He mumbled so much to Frank.

Frank was smiling when he touched Gerard's lip with his fingertip. His hands smelled like potato chips and cigarettes. "Take these out, 'kay?" he said, poking Gerard's fangs with his finger. "Wanna kiss you without these in the way."

Gerard studied Frank's eyes for a while: they were honest and expectant. He nodded and pushed the plastic teeth out with his tongue. He threw them in the trash can next to Frank's bed, and gave Frank a sheepish smile.

Frank tugged Gerard on the bed, sitting beside him, and kissed him again.

Gerard brought his hand to rest on Frank's neck, fingers pressing against Frank's jawline. He licked into Frank's mouth persistently, tasting Red Bull and smokes and cake.

Frank whimpered as he pressed closer, touching Gerard's face and chest and belly while his leg tried to drape over Gerard's knee. He smeared kisses on Gerard's jaw and under his chin, pulling hard at Gerard's white collar shirt.

"C'mon," Gerard murmured, tugging and pulling until Frank was snug against his chest, legs straddling his thighs. Rocking a little, Frank shifted even closer, inadvertently pressing his knee on Gerard's cloak and almost managing to strangle him in the process.

"Shit, sorry sorry," Frank wailed as he tried to struggle his weight off the cloak, totally failing.

Gerard croaked and flailed around until he located the knotted ribbon on his neck. He tried to loosen the knot and free himself from the offending cloth with Frank unhelpfully pawing at the threads. When he finally managed to get himself freed, he gasped for air, then cracked up.

"Oh man," he wheezed. "This is like the weirdest fucking make out I've ever had."

Frank rubbed at Gerard's throat gently while they both laughed some more.

"I've had weirder," he shrugged, and quickly leaned forward to peck Gerard's cheek.

Gerard snorted. "Before you kissed me I wasn't even sure you were into guys 'cause of your ex-girlfriend. And god, _Bob_. You managed to confuse me so much with him, too."

Frank giggled. "What? You thought I was into chicks and Bob and everyone besides you? ”

Gerard mumbled his reply.

Frank gave him an affectionate smile and wrapped himself completely around Gerard, legs around Gerard's waist and arms around his neck, while nuzzling against the side of his face.

Gerard hugged him close, breathing him in. He really hoped that Frank liked him as much as he liked Frank.

Somewhere between that thought and a sigh, Gerard found himself on his back, sandwiched between Frank and the bed. Frank pressed his mouth against Gerard's throat and poked a pulse point with the tip of his tongue. He hummed a little, fingers scratching Gerard's scalp.

"Frank," Gerard said with a raspy voice, but didn't know where to take that sentence. He made a fist on the small of Frank's back, Frank's hoodie bunching up inside his palm, and shuddered as Frank's tongue poked at him more insistently.

"Frank," he said again, kind of unsure, because as much as he liked where things were headed, it probably wasn't the best thing to be doing right now. And he had been trying so hard to make the right choices lately, it was all a part of finally fixing his life.

"I don't think -"

"I want--" Frank interrupted, pressing kisses up along the column of Gerard's neck. "Wanna be with you. I -- please, Gee, please, please."

Frank's voice was needy and insistent and really fucking sexy. Gerard tugged at the waist of Frank's jeans, and groaned. He could not deny Frank of anything. And he _wanted_ this, too, wanted Frank more than anything he had wanted for a very long time.

Frank hiccuped close to Gerard's ear as he rocked his hips against Gerard's belly. Gerard couldn't have brought himself to stop this anymore even if he'd really wanted to, which he didn't, so he just stopped worrying and focused on Frank, hard and taut and warm in his arms.

"Thought you looked apologetic when I first saw you," Frank babbled. "Didn't understand why. You weren't like the rest though, an' I like that, fuck."

Gerard's hands gripped Frank's ass, pushing him closer still. "Wha?" he mumbled, kind of ridiculously turned on. "Got some loser fetish or somethin'?"

That earned a hard shove at his chest. Frank huffed indignantly, and dug his fingers under Gerard's shirt, poking at his ribs so hard that Gerard kind of wanted to cry out in pain. He bit his lip though, stupidly proud when he managed to stay quiet.

"Fuck you," Frank said. He sounded pissed off again, but he kept rocking against Gerard, humping him into the mattress industriously, which was a damn big relief. "You stupid fuckin' _nnguh_ ," he garbled, pawing at Gerard's chest when Gerard angled his hips just right.

Frank's mouth was soft and wet on Gerard's clavicle when he came. Gerard twisted his head enough to nip at Frank's earlobe, calming him, giving Frank time to catch his breath, letting him come down even though Gerard was still aching and uncomfortably hot and beginning to feel really desperate.

Frank seemed to notice this as he let out a shuddering breath and struggled his hand into Gerard's jeans, scratching his belly as he went. He nipped at the hollow of Gerard's throat and jacked him sloppily, mumbling something that Gerard's brain couldn't even take in anymore because he was coming too now, bucking up and twisting his hands on Frank's sweaty hoodie.

Frank spent some time petting Gerard's dick and murmuring randomly. Gerard made a noise, and Frank finally pulled his hand out and wriggled his fingers next to Gerard's face. He smirked and wiped the hand clean on Gerard's shirt before sinking down on Gerard's chest, pressing a smile into his shoulder.

Gabe was yelling _Midtoooown! Midtoooown!_ in the living room, but Frank's cackles almost drowned him out.

 

\--

 

Frank wrote his phone number on Gerard's palm and said, "I had a great time tonight. We should do this more often."

Gerard stared at the numbers and nodded, then kissed Frank's cheek, quickly because Mikey was watching. He felt uncomfortable in his pants, and everyone was staring at him and Frank like they knew exactly what had gone on in Frank's room. The come was beginning to dry and it glued his dick to his boxers. He could feel fabric flakes sticking to his skin. He promised to call Frank later with his phone number, or give it to him Monday morning on the ferry, then hurriedly stumbled out the front door with Mikey and Ray snickering in the stairwell.

In the car, Mikey looked at him calculatingly through the front mirror while Ray babbled about Gabe maybe introducing Ryland and Alex to him some time.

"Ryland and Alex from... Ivy League?" Gerard asked on autopilot, his thoughts still with Frank. "Huh, small world."

"What? _You_ know them?" Ray sounded suspicious and a little bit jealous.

"Nah, but Vicky from work does."

"Did you and Frank, y'know," Mikey interrupted. Gerard almost swerved off the road.

"Jesus, Mikey!"

Mikey grinned. "I think that answers my question."

 

\--

 

On Monday morning Gerard woke up with good spirits. It was early, and his toes felt like icicles, but for once Gerard was more than happy to leave for work.

He checked his reflection in the mirror on his bedroom wall, above an old drawer where he kept his brushes and inks. His hair was a mess like always, but at least it wasn't as greasy as usually. Showering before the party was still paying off. He looked at his palm where Frank's number was still somewhat visible, then checked that the post-it note where he had copied the number Friday night was still safely tacked on the mirror. It had been a long weekend for Gerard. All he had wanted was to call Frank, but he also didn’t want to come off as too eager and creep Frank out. In the end, he had deemed it best to wait.

"Okay, buddy," he said to his reflection, not quite able to hold back his toothy grin. "Ready to see Frankie again?"

Mirror-Gerard rolled his eyes, grinning still, and told him to hurry the fuck up, because, "At this rate you're going to miss your ferry, you big cheeky bastard!"

When he got there, he scanned the café. It was mostly empty this morning, which fit Gerard just fine. At least Frank would have more time for Gerard, no one would be there interrupting them.

Quietly humming to himself, Gerard sat down by his signature table and brushed his hair out of his eyes. He looked around the café again, and wondered when Frank would come out of the kitchen and notice him waiting.

He was drumming the edge of the table with his index fingers and staring intently at the kitchen door when a girl with curly, sand-colored hair tied up in a loose bun and wearing smart clothes walked out of the kitchen. She had a red apron tied around her waist and she was balancing plates in her hands.

She breezed past Gerard while he gaped at her, feeling the familiar drop of his stomach. He watched her do Frank's job with an aura of strange calmness, so out of place already, smiling lovely and shaking her head when old men tipped her generously.

"Did you want something to eat?" she asked Gerard with a bright smile. Her name tag read Greta, and she looked like a modern-day angel. "Drink orders down by the counter."

"Uhhh," Gerard said. He looked around the café, still searching for Frank, and helplessly flapped his hands.

"Okay," she smiled kindly to him. "Just ask for Greta if you change your mind."

 

\--

 

At work Gerard doodled on the back of his old tax return envelope and reflected on the morning on the ferry. He had spent the journey staring at the tiny window on the kitchen door, watching Bob's white chef hat bobbing left and right as he completed various orders. He had watched as Greta chatted with pensioners and cleaned tables with Frank's dirty-white rag, pretending he wasn't staring at her when she looked his way.

Gerard didn't want to consider the option that Frank was hiding from him, but it was what was starting to make more and more sense in his head.

What else could it be?

Gerard still wasn't sure what he had done wrong.

Maybe Frank had just been looking for a simple lay on Friday, and he was now trying to avoid seeing Gerard again, probably feeling bad for leading him on. After all, everything always looked clearer in daylight. Sure, Frank had seemed really into Gerard, but it wasn’t the first time Gerard had read people wrong.

Gerard decided to swipe these thoughts out of his head. Frank was probably just running errands for Brian or something. He was sure Frank would be there to greet him when he got back from work.

He had his coffee in the break room. Vicky strolled in right after him, long legs and loose hair, like an Amazon. Her smile was making Gerard nervous. She wanted to know how things had gone with Frank, and Gerard gave her a tight smile, muttering about having so much work to do, and that he would tell her all about it later. He hid from Vicky in his cubicle the rest of the day, lurking behind palm plants and water coolers when he tried to get to the restroom without her noticing.

Frank wasn't on the ferry in the evening either. He didn't greet Gerard with a wide smile and coffee the next morning, and Bob never came out from the kitchen now that Frank wasn't there so Gerard couldn't even ask him what was up. Greta had done her best to be nice to Gerard, asking him if everything was alright and if she could bring him something to eat or drink, but she would always only get curt answers back. Gerard asked her if she knew where Frank was but she didn't even seem to know _who_ he was talking about. Eventually she stopped bothering him altogether, and left him alone.

On the fourth morning Gerard woke up to the noises of Jimmy and Chantal having sex. It was just Gerard’s luck that Jimmy would want to have loud banging sex early in the morning just when Gerard had been in the middle of a lovely dream he couldn’t remember much about anymore.

He drank instant coffee mix from a cereal bowl because all of his mugs were looking pitifully small that morning. There wasn’t really any reason for him to wait until he was on the ferry to drink his coffee now. Some of his most favorite moments involved the café, and Frank chatting with him about unimportant things. It just wasn’t the same anymore.

He selected a pair of softly worn jeans from the backrest of a chair, burrowed into a loose black hoodie with the hood over his head, wrapped his neck in three different scarves, shrugged into his leather jacket, pulled gray mittens over his hands and ignored Mrs. Blumenkrantz in the stairwell, Eddie lurking in the doorway, and did a bad job of not thinking about Frank.

Gerard sighed. He guessed he could in theory call Frank since he was the one with the phone number. He had considered it earlier, but he couldn't quite bring himself to do it anymore. He didn't even know what to say to him. Frank had made it pretty clear that he didn't want to see Gerard anymore, so there really wasn't a point in calling now.

 

\--

 

Vicky was getting restless. She had taken to spending even more time stalking Gerard at work, insisting he tell her what's really going on with him and Frank.

Mikey on the other hand had chosen, surprisingly enough, the Supportive Brother Route. He looked somewhat disappointed, but he never forced Gerard to do anything about the situation. Mostly Mikey just seemed fixated on Gerard's drinking problem, doing apartment checks and driving him to AA meetings even when Gerard snapped at him about being stupid if he thought he was going to start drinking again over this.

Gerard had done a pretty stellar job at avoiding Ray altogether.

He was sitting in his bed in the dark, smoking a cigarette and staring at the hot pink post-it note on the mirror where Frank's phone number had made home almost a week ago. The air was thick around him, his head was itching, and there was an annoying numbness settling into his leg. He wondered if the ‘we should do this again’ Frank had quipped at Gerard after the party had been an invitation for casual sex, or if Frank had said that to him just to be nice. Maybe he had meant that Gerard should give him a call when he wanted to hook up again, and then only after Gerard had left realized that Gerard wanted so much more out of it.

And now Frank was hiding from him.

Awesome.

Gerard’s life was a fucking joke.

Gerard went to bed with a headache, and if he didn't get much sleep that night, it wasn't because of Eddie's moonlight serenade, but because he couldn't stop thinking about Frank and what could have been.

 

\--

 

The feeling of loneliness came back into Gerard's life. Frank had consumed such a huge part of his life with his big personality that when he suddenly wasn't filling up that space anymore, it felt emptier than it had for years. Gerard had experienced this same feeling only once before, when he'd moved out of his childhood home. He didn't even spend much time with Mikey anymore because the only thing Mikey seemed to be fixated on was badmouthing Frank. Gerard didn't need that kind of side-taking right now.

 

\--

 

Gerard had been at the corner shop stacking up on smokes and Red Bull. The shop was owned by a crazy Italian old couple that reminded Gerard vaguely of his family during the Holidays. Gerard was positive they ran background checks on their customers because they seemed to know everything about everyone. They knew all about Gerard's work aspirations, and even asked him about his brother and that lovely lady he always seemed to be with, probably fishing for wedding invitations or hoping to hear some baby news.

When Gerard got back to his building, he heard muffled ringing coming from his apartment. A paper bag containing his purchases between his teeth, Gerard jiggled his keys until he found the right one, then rammed it into the lock. It was a relatively warm evening considering the season, and Gerard was sweating in the pile of clothes he had thrown on himself going out.

He searched his batphone in a hurry, turning over bedclothes and throwing pillows on the floor, not sure why he bothered. He hit his big toe on the foot of the bed and yelled, "Bitch _motherfucker_ ," into his mattress while his eyes watered. When he finally located his phone (it sat between comic book piles and dust bunnies under the bed), the caller had already hung up on him, and Gerard sighed, still awkwardly sprawled over his bed.

The doorbell rang after a while.

Gerard rolled onto his back and closed his eyes, listening. Whoever was at the door didn't relent, and soon there was hard banging coupled with the ringing and a pissed off voice yelling, "Open the fucking door, Gerard, your creepy neighbor just saw you getting in!"

Frank's pissed voice.

Gerard hurried to let him in.

"Frank! I didn't -- you're the last person I expected to see." Gerard was sweating again. He didn't know what to do with his hands; they flapped helplessly in the air but at least he still somehow managed to close the door with them.

Frank snorted. It wasn't an amused noise. "You never called," he said, his voice raspy and rough, and after locating Gerard's living room, sat down on the couch. Gerard followed him, confused.

"Well, yeah, but I think you made it pretty clear you didn't want me to." He didn't sit down beside Frank. He crossed his arms defensively against his chest, and frowned. Internally he was freaking the fuck out.

"What the fuck are you talking about?" Frank said. He was still pretty pissed judging by the tone of his voice and the way he was tense like Gerard had never seen before.

"Why weren't you working on Monday?" Gerard countered.

Frank huffed a laugh. It was the kind of noise that said, I can't fucking believe you, you son of a bitch. He stood up, shaking his head, and ran a hand up along his face.

"I was fucking huddled in bed in fever, that's fucking why!"

Ouch.

That was not what Gerard had been expecting to hear. He suddenly felt like the biggest fucking jerk in the world.

"You -- you were sick?" Gerard cringed. And yeah, now that Gerard was really looking at Frank, he could see Frank still didn't look completely well. His eyelids were at half-mast, nose and cheeks pink, and he sounded like he had been coughing up a lung earlier.

Frank laughed again. He still didn't sound amused. "Fuck you, you can't be serious! You thought _I_ was ignoring _you_?”

"Well." Gerard flapped his hands, feeling miserable. He thought he maybe needed help.

"You're really something else, aren't you."

Gerard didn't know what to say, but yeah, he probably was. He was vaguely aware that he should have started groveling, like, yesterday, but words got stuck somewhere before he managed to speak them, and holy shit he was a fucking asshole.

The phone started ringing again, and it brought him out of his haze. Gerard gave Frank an apologetic look and hurried to pick up the receiver. At the other end of the line was Ray, demanding to know why Gerard hadn't picked up earlier and telling him to stay put because Frank should be dropping by sometime in the near future.

Gerard swallowed noisily and hung up. "It was Ray," he said.

"Right," Frank said. "Did he tell you I was coming over?"

Gerard nodded.

"Okay."

"Look, Frank--"

"No, just. Shut up for a while," Frank snapped. He grabbed Gerard's hand and gave his fingers a tight squeeze. He was frowning, looking fucking menacing, still so very pretty. "I like you, I fucking like you a lot. Fuck if I know why, but I do."

Gerard opened his mouth to say, I like you too, but Frank's glare shut him up. "What I don't like is having to ask your friend for your address, or even not being sure if we're on the same page about -- about this thing that we have, or don't have. See? I don't even fucking know if there is something. I thought I knew, but you've been sending me so many mixed signals that I'm getting fucking confused."

Gerard squeezed Frank's hand back. He traced Frank's knuckles with his thumb, and watched Frank let out a heavy sigh. Gerard was the worst judge of character in the whole fucking world.

"I'm sorry. I do like you. A lot. I -- I don't know what happened. I just. Fucked up. I wasn’t sure if you wanted me or, y’know,” Gerard gestured wildly with his hands, kinda really embarrassed by now. “Just to get laid," he finished, cringing at his own words.

Frank gave him an incredulous look. "God, you're the most oblivious person I think I've ever met,” he said. “What the fuck? You thought I just – oh, fuck you! If I wanted a quick fuck with no strings attached, I’d go to someone easier than you," Frank snorted. “God. Why wouldn’t I want to be with you?”

"I dunno. Why would you?"

"Because I like you, that's fucking why. And I'm gonna punch you in the face if you ask me why I like you, man. Where the fuck is your self-confidence?"

Gerard scrunched up his face. He hugged his arms tight against his chest and wondered if this was the right time to tell Frank about his depression. Frank was really angry, and he had to say something. “There’s just some… stuff about me you don’t know, and it’s probably what’s still affecting my reasoning, er.”

Frank nodded, sighing. "Okay. You come with a package. I get that. But I will continue not knowing if you don't _tell_ me."

There wasn't really anything else Gerard could do, so he told him.

They sat close on Gerard’s sofa, Gerard toying with the seams of his hoodie as he told Frank about his depression, how a year ago he couldn't even get out of bed without Xanax, and how he had started taking pills and booze together, how in the end they had made him feel suicidal, and how much he had scared Mikey back then, almost made him sick, too, with worry.

He told Frank how he had been on the verge of losing his job, and how he was still struggling to get better.

It sounded weird, coming out of his mouth, but it was also strangely liberating, being able to tell Frank everything. He wondered why he hadn’t told him about it earlier.

"I still get really anxious sometimes, but I don't think I'll ever get completely over that part."

Gerard swallowed hard around a thick lump in his throat. He knew he had probably blown his chance with Frank. But he also knew that if he ever wanted to have anything with Frank, he had to tell him about these things.

Frank was looking at him with his eyebrows drawn. He sighed, still squeezing Gerard’s hand in his.

Gerard made a surprised sound when Frank's arms wrapped around him, warm and comforting, and he sighed heavily, pressing his face into the junction of Frank's neck and shoulder.

"You're really fucking brave, Gerard, I’m glad you told me," Frank said. Gerard huffed a laugh into his neck.

"'M'not brave. I'm anything but."

"How can you say that when you've gone through so much shit and you're still here? You've already got over the worst, and you're still here."

"I -- Frank, I really like you. I'm sorry for being such a huge fuck up," Gerard said, still embarrassed for drawing such wrong conclusions earlier, and not being there for Frank when he was sick. He brought Frank’s hand to his lips, kissing his knuckles in apology.

Frank made a small noise of agreement and let Gerard pet his hand.

"Gerard. This thing," Frank motioned between them, "It's gonna take some time, but I'm so ready to make it happen, and I think you are, too, you just. You gotta trust that I won't bail out. Do you think I'd be here if I didn't like you so much? I don't go through all this trouble just for anybody, y'know."

Gerard took a shaky breath. He was sure he had never been this nervous before in his life. "I'm," he croaked, then cleared his throat. "I'm ready, too." He hoped he sounded as sincere as he felt.

"Okay," Frank said, doing a weird half-nod. He sounded almost as shaky as Gerard. "Okay. You can now start making it up to me for not visiting even _once_ when I was sick," he continued monotonously, but Gerard could see he was biting down a small grin. "I was bored to death, and fucking angry at you for not calling like you said you would, dipshit. I demand some hardcore cuddling!"

Gerard laughed and it got caught in his throat. "'Kay. Come here." He slid his hand on Frank's side and tugged him close, planting a small kiss on Frank's cheek, another one on his jawline, breathing him in as he kept pulling Frank until he was nestled in a tight hug. Frank was pliant and compact all at once, snuggling up to Gerard, fitting his head under Gerard's chin, rucking up Gerard's hoodie in his balled fists.

"Oh, by the way?" Frank spoke, chapped lips tickling the side of Gerard's neck. His voice sounded kinda fucked up this close. "I wouldn't go near Bob any time soon if I were you, he's fucking pissed at you. Oh, and Brian, too, I guess."

Gerard nodded somberly. "Mikey's kinda pissed at you, but I'll talk to him. He'll probably want to switch sides."

Frank snorted, and it brought on a wet coughing fit. Gerard held him close, running a hand along Frank's back soothingly while he coughed up at least a lung and a half a gallon of snot.

Gerard figured Ray had given Frank Gerard’s address since he knew Frank had Ray’s phone number, but. "How'd you get here?" Gerard asked when Frank stopped coughing. He was pretty sure Frank's car was still waiting to be fixed, and they weren't exactly neighbors.

"I took a bus to Ray's place and then walked from there," Frank said into Gerard's hoodie.

"Frank! You're sick, you shouldn't have--"

"Yeah, yeah. Shut up before you sound like my mom."

Gerard tutted. He'd feel horrible if Frank got pneumonia because of him.

Gerard reached for the blanket on the back of the couch, wrapping it around Frank, grinning stupidly when Frank squirmed in his lap, elbows digging into Gerard’s sides, as he tried to get comfortable.

Gerard made a quiet promise to both of them. He was sure he would fuck up again somehow, but at least now he was determined to never let Frank slip away from him so easily, just like Frank hadn't let Gerard go.

Frank burrowed his face into Gerard's armpit, and snickered. "Remind me to talk to you 'bout showerin' at least twice a week when I wake up," he murmured, spitting smelly fabric from his mouth.

Gerard made an exasperated sigh, and tugged at Frank's sweater affectionately, arranging him snug up against his chest. His sketches were resting on the coffee table, and he promised to make his book a reality some day, but for now he was content to just sprawl on the couch with Frank. He made a mental note to himself to drive Frank back home before Eddie would start making noise, then closed his eyes and focused on holding him.

 

 _End_


End file.
